“I consider him the most important suspect at this point,” she said, and she sounded worn down, almost detached or maybe broken.
It wasn’t about her being tired. It was about something else.
“Hap Judd should be on the wall because of Dodie and because of Hannah.” Berger was looking around the table but not really connecting to anyone, almost as if she was addressing a grand jury. “And also Toni Darien. His ties to High Roller Lanes and possibly Freddie Maestro, and we should add Park General Hospital in Harlem, which isn’t very far from where Toni’s body was found off One hundred and tenth Street.”
More branches on the flat screen: Hannah Starr connected to Hap Judd connected to Dodie, and indirectly to Jerome Wild. All the connections now linked to Toni Darien, High Roller Lanes, and Park General Hospital, and linked back to the root, to Jean-Baptiste Chandonne. Berger explained Hap’s past at the Harlem hospital, and a young woman who died there named Farrah Lacy, and then Berger got back to Hap’s link to the Starrs, his visits to the Park Avenue mansion for at least one dinner and on other occasions for sex. O’Dell interrupted her to point out that Rupe Starr wouldn’t have courted a minor actor who had no more to invest than half a million dollars.
“These major players like Rupe,” O’Dell explained, “they won’t even talk to you unless you got a hell of a lot more than that to hand over.”
“This was about a year before Rupe Starr died,” Berger said. “By which point Hannah was married to Bobby Fuller.”
“Maybe one of those situations where the family starts crowding out the boss, starts running things the way they want,” Stockman suggested.
“I know you’ve looked into Hannah’s financials,” Berger said, and she meant that the FBI had. “Because of information I passed on that we discovered, that Lucy and I did.”
As if everyone would know who Lucy was and, significantly, who she was to Berger.
“A lot of activity in a lot of banks here and abroad,” Stockman said. “Starting about two years ago. Then after Rupe Starr died last May, most of the money’s been lost.”
“Hap claims he was in New York the night before Thanksgiving, when Hannah disappeared. The next day he flew to L.A. We’re going to want warrants to search his place in TriBeCa. We should do that without delay. He claims that Hannah and Bobby never had sex,” Berger went on, with none of the usual strength in her voice and not a glint of her wry humor. “In his words, not once.”
“Yeah, right,” O’Dell said sarcastically. “The oldest line in the book. No fire on the hearth so you go elsewhere to get warm.”
“Hannah Starr was a socialite, ran with a fast crowd, hobnobbed with the rich and the famous here and abroad but never at the mansion,” Berger went on. “She was much more public, would rather be on Page Six of the Post than in the family dining room, her style the antithesis of her father’s. Her priorities clearly very different. She’s the one who first connected to Hap, according to him. They met at the Monkey Bar. Soon after, he was a guest at one of Rupe’s dinners and became a client. Hannah personally handled his money. Hap claims Hannah was afraid of Bobby.”
“It wasn’t Bobby who was in town the night Hannah vanished and then on a plane the very next day,” Lanier pointedly said.
“Exactly right,” Berger said, looking at Benton. “I’m very concerned about Hap’s involvements with everyone. And his proclivities. Kay says Toni Darien was dead for a day and a half before her body was left in the park. She was kept in a cool environment, indoors somewhere. Maybe now that’s making sense.”
More names were being added to the graph on the wall.
“And Warner Agee and Carley Crispin,” Benton said to Stockman. “They should be up there.”
“We’ve got no reason to think Agee or Carley had any association with anybody we’ve got up here on the wall,” O’Dell said.
“We know Carley’s connected to Kay,” Benton said. “And I’m connected to Agee.”
The click of keys. Scarpetta’s and Benton’s names appeared on the flat screen. It was awful seeing them there. Connected to everyone. Connected to the root, Jean-Baptiste Chandonne.
Benton went on. “And based on what Lucy and Kay found inside Agee’s hotel room, I suspect he was involved in the casino business.”
Casinos was added to the wall.
“He was using his paranormal interests and influence to research something, manipulate something.”
Paranormal was another branch on the tree.
“Maybe doing so under the patronage of a wealthy Frenchman supposedly named Lecoq,” Benton continued, and that name appeared next. “Someone-possibly this Monsieur Lecoq-was paying Agee in cash. And possibly Freddie Maestro was, too. So Lecoq and Maestro might be connected, and that would link Detroit to France.”
“We don’t know who Lecoq is or if he really exists,” Lanier said to Benton.
“He exists. But we don’t know who he is.”
“You thinking this Lecoq guy’s the Wolfman?” O’Dell asked Benton.
“Let’s don’t call him that. Jean-Baptiste Chandonne is no stereotype. He’s not a myth. He’s a man who could at this point in time be fully capable of looking normal. He could have a number of aliases. In fact, he would have to.”
“He speak with a French accent?” Stockman was on his laptop, adding offshoots that appeared on the tree on the wall.
“He can speak with a number of accents or no accent,” Benton said. “In addition to French, he’s fluent in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and English. Maybe other languages by now. I don’t know.”
“Why Carley Crispin?” Stockman asked as he worked on the graph. “And why was she paying for Agee’s room? Or was someone else funneling money through her?”
“Probably a type of petty money laundering.” Lanier was making notes. “Sounds like a lot of that going on here, even if in relatively small ways. People paying in cash. People paying other people to pay for other people. No credit cards or wire transfers or checks that leave a paper trail. At least not for business that might not be considered legitimate.”
“Carley was going to kick him out of his room this weekend.” Berger met Benton’s eyes, and hers were as impenetrable as stone. “Why?”
“I can offer a theory,” Benton said. “Agee e-mailed Carley information allegedly from a witness, and we know it was bogus. He impersonated Harvey Fahley by using a Web captioning service. Lucy found that transcript and a number of other ones on Agee’s computer. The producers of The Crispin Report are in a hell of a lot of hot water because of what she released on the air last night about Hannah Starr’s hair being recovered from a yellow cab. A detail Agee fabricated in a phony phone interview, and Carley fell for it. Or it suited her to fall for it. Either way, she didn’t bank on getting into more trouble with the network than she was already in.”
“So she fired him,” Lanier said to him.
“Why wouldn’t she? She also knew she was about to get fired. She wasn’t going to need Agee anymore, no matter who was paying for his room. There may be a personal element,” Benton said. “We don’t know what Carley told Agee when she called him from CNN at close to eleven p.m. last night. The last phone call he got, it seems.”
“We got to talk to Carley Crispin,” Stockman said. “Too bad Agee’s dead. It’s sounding to me like he might be the key to everything.”
“What he did was stupid as hell,” said O’Dell. “He was a forensic psychiatrist. He should have known better. This Harvey Fahley guy was going to deny talking to him.”
Berger said, “He has. I spoke to Detective Bonnell while we were getting coffee. She got hold of him after the show last night. He admits e-mailing Agee but claims he never talked to him and never said anything about Hannah’s hair being found.”